Legacy privileged access management (PAM) solutions, rooted in a perimeter-centric security model, can become security liabilities for Federal agencies. In an interview with MeriTalk, James Scobey, chief information security officer (CISO), Keeper Security, discussed his recent move to Keeper from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Federal agencies’ progress toward zero trust security architectures, and why modern PAM solutions are a foundational element of zero trust.   […]

As the White House’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) takes the reins over the U.S. Digital Service with a mission to modernize Federal technology to improve efficiency and productivity, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) is newly reporting that it has over 450 high-risk related recommendations outstanding to fix Fed IT acquisition and management problems that have yet to be acted upon by Federal agencies.   […]

President Trump signed an executive order on Monday that reinstates a plan from his prior administration to create a new Schedule F classification for Federal agency employees in policy-making positions that will make it easier for the new administration to replace them. […]

House and Senate lawmakers have reintroduced the Saving the Civil Service Act which aims to blunt an expected push by the incoming Trump administration to create a new Schedule F classification for Federal agency employees in policy-making positions that would make it easier to replace them by the new administration. […]

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., and Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, today introduced the latest version of their Federal Adjustment of Income Rates (FAIR) Act, which would provide Federal employees with a 4.3 percent pay increase in calendar year 2026. […]

Democrats and Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee showed deep divisions of opinion on the value of telework for Federal government agencies, and whether increased telework since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic has helped or harmed the ability of agencies to deliver services to citizens. […]

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, today slammed Republicans’ plan to create a subcommittee that would work with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy on President-elect Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) advisory group. […]

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) discovered that the agency did not properly protect personally identifiable information (PII) stored on a shared network drive, in an incident the OIG is calling a “potential breach.” […]

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) kicked off a notice of proposed rulemaking on Dec. 27 that it said aims to change the existing Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Security Rule with the goal of improving cybersecurity protections for electronic protected health information (ePHI). […]

The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) is touting the success of its fraud-fighting abilities and calling on Congress to permanently establish its Pandemic Analytics Center of Excellence (PACE) before the center’s scheduled sunset date of Sept. 30, 2025. […]

Two pieces of legislation with significant Federal IT implications successfully completed the long legislative process in late December, while a third such bill has been sent to the White House and still requires President Biden’s signature before becoming law. […]

Former Department of Defense (DoD) chief information security officer (CISO) David McKeown has been tapped as the agency’s first-ever special assistant for cybersecurity innovation, DoD’s CIO Office (CIO) said.   […]

The General Services Administration’s (GSA) Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) is exploring creating a new funding source by potentially charging cloud providers as part of their efforts to go through the FedRAMP process. […]

MeriTalk recognized 17 Federal agencies for their excellence in IT during the FITARA Awards ceremony at Tech Tonic on Thursday evening, with Federal chief information officers (CIOs) taking home awards to celebrate their success on the 18th edition of the FITARA Scorecard. […]

House Democrats today chose Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va. – one of the most influential members of Congress on Federal government technology and workforce issues – as the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee when the 119th Congress begins its work in January. […]

The Alliance for Digital Innovation (ADI) sent an open letter today to President-elect Donald Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) calling on the advisory group to focus its efforts on “three critical areas where targeted engagement and direction from DOGE can dramatically enhance government performance while driving long-term efficiency.” […]

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has tallied up a total of $191 billion of fraudulent claims paid out through state unemployment insurance (UI) agencies to hackers and fraudsters – up from previous estimates that put the fraud figure closer to $100 billion. […]

Kevin Walsh, a director of IT and cybersecurity at the Government Accountability Office (GAO), told lawmakers today that modernizing the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) decades-old technology is “going to be the work of many years, billions of dollars, and thousands of people.” […]

As Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Chief Information Officer (CIO) Kurt DelBene prepares to head out before the Trump administration takes office, the CIO shared lessons learned on Thursday during his tenure from the agency’s IT modernization efforts – including that “big bang” modernizations don’t work. […]

The Department of Energy (DoE) needs to invest in and implement enterprise-wide data analytics capabilities in order to better identify and mitigate risk, according to a new report from the DoE Office of Inspector General (OIG). […]

The House voted on Wednesday to approve bipartisan legislation that aims to improve the management of how the Federal government purchases and uses software. […]

The Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) elected Hannibal “Mike” Ware, inspector general (IG) for the Small Business Administration (SBA) and acting IG for the Social Security Administration (SSA), to serve as CIGIE chair. […]

The Trump-Vance transition team signed a key memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Biden-Harris White House on Tuesday to ease the transition between the two administrations.   […]

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) tapped Jennifer Wendel to serve as its permanent chief information officer (CIO) on Nov. 18, according to the agency’s website. […]

As the number of successful cyberattacks on healthcare organizations continues to rise, a new report from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) is calling on HHS to better ensure the protection of electronic protected health information (ePHI). […]

A bipartisan group of 12 senators is calling on the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) internal watchdog to investigate the collection of biometric data from airport-based facial recognition technology, citing privacy concerns.  […]

President-elect Donald Trump late Friday said he will nominate Russell Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) – reprising his role as OMB director from 2019 to 2021 during the first Trump administration – and handing Vought the reins on a host of crucial issues for the Federal workforce and how Federal agencies function. […]

President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) effort – which has a mission to find ways to reduce government spending and potentially do away with any number of government operations – went from a mostly aspirational advisory exercise to a potentially powerful political force on Thursday. […]

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Chief Information Officer (CIO) Kurt DelBene told lawmakers on Wednesday that the agency’s cybersecurity capabilities are suffering from a shortage of skilled IT workers that stems from a slim budget to hire enough of them. […]

The Pentagon’s lead UFO investigator – or, as they’re officially called these days, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs) – is asking Congress to stay on board as the number of mysterious sightings continues to climb. […]